Stomach cancer survival rates up

People with stomach or gut cancer are 40% more likely to survive a year after diagnosis than they were 20 years ago, researchers said.

Early diagnosis has helped improve survival rates, from 27% for stomach cancer in the 1980s to 38% in the 2000s.

One-year survival rates for oesophageal cancer have risen from 25% to 36% over the same period, the figures for England showed.

Both cancers can be hard to diagnose as the symptoms can be confused with other conditions.

Better treatment options, including surgery by experts in specialist centres and the introduction of chemotherapy for advanced disease, have also played a part in increasing the survival rates.

Furthermore, early diagnosis and better screening has led to 95% of breast cancer patients surviving for more than a year after diagnosis, the data showed. This is a rise of 6% on 20 years ago.

Experts from the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) examined one-year survival data for 3.5 million cancer patients in England between 1985 and 2004 for the study.

They found that, despite a rise in the number of people being diagnosed with cancer, there has been a fall in the number of deaths. The number being diagnosed has gone up largely due to people living longer lives.

In the five years to the late 1980s, around 840,000 people were diagnosed with cancer and 56% survived beyond a year after diagnosis. In the five years to 2005, more than a million people were diagnosed with cancer, but 67% survived beyond a year.

Professor David Forman, information lead at the NCIN, said: "Increases in one-year survival rates are a useful signpost. For many types of cancer, they suggest that the disease is being diagnosed at an earlier stage, which is vitally important in treating the disease successfully. It's really positive that survival rates for stomach and oesophageal cancer have significantly increased, because they're cancers that are usually diagnosed very late - too late to cure."

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